Various industrial welding practices utilize cored wire or flux-cored wire as a feedstock. Cored wire typically consists of an outer tubular jacket of mild steel with internal metallic powders suited to the application at hand.
FIG. 1 is a schematic drawing of a machine of the type currently used to produce cored wire. Flat stock 10 is fed into a series of rollers 12, 12′, etc., which progressively shape the flat stock into a tubular structure with a gap 20 into which one or more powders 22 are introduced. The rollers 12, 12′, etc. provide cup-shaping at smaller and smaller radii until the intermediate tubing with a gap is ultimately realized. After the powders are introduced into the gap, another series of rollers 24, 24′, and so forth, are used to compress the powder-containing tube until the gap is fully compressed and sealed within the wire. The wire is then wound onto a spool and typically shipped to a customer in coiled form. Though not shown in the drawing, one or more pulling stages and/or forming dies may be used to reduce the diameter of the wire as desired.
Although machines of the type shown in FIG. 1 are adequate when properly maintained, they require considerable attention due to the thousands of different components and moving parts. As such, not only are machines of this type expensive to build, they are also expensive to operate